


For What You Want, You're Gonna Bleed

by stardustedknuckles



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blood, Canon Timeline, F/F, Fingering, Whipping, beau makes yasha feel safe, but make it soft?, in the vague and not-too-distant future, it's about the TRUST, sometimes yasha needs to create that sense of safety herself, trust exercises gone wild, vaguely subby yasha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:48:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27772531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustedknuckles/pseuds/stardustedknuckles
Summary: "I guess the only time I really let it all out is when I fight, which I'm not sure is the healthiest thing in the world."Beau and Yasha find another way to let it all out.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Comments: 4
Kudos: 69





	For What You Want, You're Gonna Bleed

**Author's Note:**

> I did an hour of research for like three background lines. tldr: whips are awesome. Don't fuckin play with em.

They're at the door to the closet of many things, because tonight is one of those nights - the nights when Yasha's restlessness can't be tamed by sparring or fucking or anything else they've thought to try short of this.

Not that either of them minds this, but there's a kind of thoughtful weight that comes with the idea of walking into someone's head - it's been months and even the tower has only recently stopped being "Caleb's tower" and just "home." It's a lot to be given the keys to the inner workings of someone's mind, no matter how well two people know each other or how honoring it feels. Beau watches Yasha and silently hopes to be enough, tonight.

Yasha's eyes are closed as she reaches a hand out, touches the cool wood for a long second before pushing it tentatively open. This thing they share is still fresh, relatively, and neither of them knows exactly what's waiting, but they can trust it will be what's needed. There's a magic to it that runs deeper than the arcane, Beau thinks as they step inside. To the tower, yes, but also the ability of a room to arrange itself in a way a person needs when they can't even identify what that might be for themselves. Bonds are involved in this, run through it and around it and inside of it. How else can Yasha walk in without knowing exactly what she's looking for and recognize it nonetheless?

And Yasha is immediately at home here, already moving towards something before Beau even knows what she's seeing.

The room is circular, and there are only three things that catch the eye beyond the door. Over the center of the room, chains dangle from the ceiling. Dozens of them, manacles empty and reaching for the ground at varying heights. On the ground, coiled neatly, a leather whip with a sturdy key nestled on top of the spiral it makes. On the far wall, a door with a window faintly steamed over.

The room is well-lit, and this strikes Beau as important somehow.

She can hear Yasha stripping quietly to her left and spares a glance, mouth dry even before she takes in the stark green tattoo glimmering softly, twisting in the light as Yasha calmly folds her clothes in a pile and steps into a light pair of pants Beau hadn't seen on the way in.

Beau is already in her undershorts and breastband, so she picks up the key and slides it into her waistband before hefting the shaft of the whip in her palm, testing. There's no need. Beau's seen it as often as she's seen the tower, almost, since the first time Beau used it and left the evidence of her lacking skill painted across Yasha's back and sides. Next time, she'd promised them both. Next time she'd get this one right.

"Next time" has become now, and Beau snaps out of her thoughts to consider the whip. It's well-maintained and broken in, as it always is when summoned here to the tower. She wonders: who breaks in a whip that doesn't exist until it's called?

The chains rattle and clink, dull with the weight of the iron they're cast in, and the sound the first manacle makes when Yasha snaps it around her wrist draws Beau's full attention. She watches the way Yasha inhales and tests her weight against the chain before reaching for the other.

"The whip," Beau begins. "Are you sure?"

Yasha snaps the second shackle closed and shivers, tension rippling out of her shoulders. Her face when Beau steps around to her line of sight is neutral; her trust in the room's ability to echo her innermost need is absolute. "Apparently."

Beau is not so easily convinced that minds know best, nor that magic is infallible. "Not good enough."

More metal rustling as Yasha rocks forward, using the shackles to brace her weight so that her arms are suspended behind and slightly above her. She looks like she's mid-dive, like she's trusting Beau to catch her before they've even begun, if she's ever stopped at all. Yasha presses a gentle kiss to Beau's lips and smiles. "I know you've been practicing," she says. "I trust you, and I want this."

Beau might not trust minds or the magic that reads them, but she trusts Yasha. She grips the leather-wrapped handle and nods once. "Okay." Yasha's hair is soft and smooth in Beau's fingers as she reaches around those broad shoulders to gather it and sweep it forward to hang over one of her breasts and out of the way. She tucks a strand behind Yasha ear and finally, she can return that smile. "I'm ready then."

Beau steps back as Yasha pulls herself back up and turns away, and her heart rests in the base of her throat as it always does when she watches Yasha kneel. She goes slowly, a kind of gravity to the whole motion that locks Beau's mind in place every bit as much as she knows it releases Yasha's.

In position like this, Yasha's arms are extended almost as far as they'll go, the blank expanse of her back rippling with coiled muscle. But more than anything, it's the sight of her bare feet tucked under her that drives home for Beau exactly how vulnerable Yasha is - how exposed she wants to feel.

But there's no more time to dwell; Yasha's desire and her back are bared as one. It's time.

Beau relaxes her stance and swishes the long leather out behind her, calculating. There's no way to politely throw a whip, and this is a mercy. Her body when she shifts her weight knows exactly what she wants from it and Beau's overhand strike cracks beautifully between Yasha's shoulder blades. Yasha's muscles tense and release almost immediately, her fingers barely twitching in the manacles. Beau waits a beat, and then the next hit lands just below the pink line of the welt already forming. With the second impact, Beau feels the tension escape her even as Yasha sits up a little straighter.

Beau feels a little thrill at the sense of control and skill, and she lets it diffuse through her before landing the third. This one cuts deeper, and Yasha's inhale of pleasure comes on the heels of the snap and the rustle of chain as her fists clench momentarily. "That's good," she murmurs on the exhale.

Beau's skin prickles. Yasha is strong and stubborn and raw and above all, she's quiet when she's vulnerable. Drawing even just that small vocalization from her promises something Beau suddenly isn't sure she can live without, and the matching fourth strike lands over the first.

It had taken time, months of taking Beau apart before Yasha had quietly brought this to her, this need to take in pain and hold it close. Yasha's blood, similarly slow to rouse, doesn't show its true color until the seventh strike, and on the ninth a gash opens for the first time to dribble a slow, dark line down that pale skin drawn taut with tension.

Beau staggers the next few hits, alternating between actual lashes and cracks that sound off close by but don't actually land. It matters, Yasha's inability to guess when or where the next strike will land, and after a volley of snaps and carefully targeted strikes Beau pauses for them both to breathe.

Yasha has begun to shake almost imperceptibly in her bindings, but her husky voice when she speaks is strong.

"More."

Beau falters for only a moment before bringing the whip down again across her spine. Yasha's arms suspended in the manacles above her tense and pull slightly, the first indication she's given of nearing her goal. Her stripes are dark enough now that the ones that bleed are almost indistinguishable from the ones that are just angry welts.

"That's fifteen," Beau says softly.

Yasha inhales. "Five more."

The leather of the whip's hilt is slick with sweat in Beau's grasp; she adjusts and rolls her shoulders. Her mouth is dry, partly from the ordeal of it all and partly because there is nothing in the world that comes close to the sight of Yasha like this: head bowed, stripped to the waist, shoulders knotted and pale skin streaked with the blood running freely from two stripes that seem to expand and contract with her deep, labored breaths.

Beau hasn't moved to strike again yet, and the chains clink gently as Yasha turns over her shoulder to her, face beaded with sweat and lips parted over her tattoo. The shadows of her hair make her pupils look almost jagged and they glitter, though with eyeshine or tears Beau can't be certain.

"Please," Yasha breathes. "You've barely broken skin."

She's so close to the zenith she's looking for - she wears tonight's pain with a sharpness that's missing from the slow build of hot wax or the icy kiss of a knife tip. There's a rawness to this, a kind of lasting echo of harshness Yasha's craving. Beau hadn't been able to give it to her the first time; the strikes had fallen short of the competence needed to get her where she wanted to be.

But she can do it this time. They're almost there.

Beau sets her jaw and nods, resolute. Yasha stares ahead again, fingers balled into loose fists over her head as her knees shift just slightly to deepen her posture and expose as much of her back to Beau as possible.

Two strikes, angled to cut deep. Yasha twitches with each of them and makes a soft growl that communicates a demand: _more of that_. The next is a stunning cut in response, and Beau feels it go just slightly wide before it cracks deep into a spot that was already starting to seep and now begins to bleed freely.

A cry wrenches itself from within Yasha on impact and her arms flex hard as she struggles hard to keep from raging, fights the automatic defense she's come to rely on in battle. Beau freezes, waiting for a signal to stop or continue.

"Eighteen!" Yasha chokes, and Beau pulls herself from the awe that is watching Yasha struggle to stay here in the moment with her and whirls the whip up and around to deliver the last two hard and fast.

Yasha writhes with a snarl, but the metal does not give and Beau forces herself to stay rooted and watch, breathless, as the pain crests inside of Yasha and stretches her to her limit. The muscles of Yasha's shoulders knot and twist, her back arching away before bowing back in chase of the last peak of agony. The fresh lines drip, her blood gathered eagerly close to the skin once spilled.

This is the other side of their coin. Yasha restrains Beau - centers her, draws all of her into a single point. And Beau releases the coil in Yasha, cuts the thread pulled taut inside of her and holds her while she reshapes. Something about this pain specifically has been calling Yasha from the start, and having succeeded in bringing her to it, Beau will not interfere.

Not until Yasha goes limp in her restraints, shuddering quietly, does Beau lay the blood-tipped whip at her feet and step into Yasha's space. Beau reaches up, past the manacles to the chain that connects them, and pulls it free from the hook holding them. The links rattle slightly as she lowers Yasha's shuddering arms until they rest at her sides. Slowly, Yasha sags forward and rests her head against Beau's stomach for a moment of rest, allows Beau's fingers to drift through her hair and her affirmations of safety to fall on her ears.

From this angle, Yasha's back looks like a kind of horizon sloping out and away into forever, and as Beau is softly petting Yasha with short, soothing strokes, one of those great hands lifts with the sound of metal against stone to rest with her fingers curled around Beau's ankle.

After those few moments spent just breathing together, Beau pushes gently against Yasha's shoulders until her weight settles back on her knees, pressing a soft kiss to Yasha's sweaty forehead before kneeling to take the first of those reddened wrists in both of her hands.

With the concentration part of the event over and done, Beau's mind is free to bask again - eternally - in the beauty of Yasha's request to all but dissolve under Beau's hands. She can't forget that Yasha doesn't need her to unlock the chains. Though they are thick, they are only metal. If Yasha chose to rage at any point, if she demanded to be free, the iron and Beau would bend under her will. They have before.

But Yasha doesn't rage, and this is the point. Rage is for protection of herself and her family, and its presence limits the range of pain she is able to confront. This thing they have, the release Yasha seeks from time to time, is also a demonstration of trust. There is nobody here to protect. There is nothing here to fear. To chase pain to its furthest corners, to remove the concept of danger and choose to trust Beau to set her free - to be protected - this is the dissolution she asks Beau to facilitate.

Beau rubs the first chafed wrist between her thumbs and moves to the other, keeping her movements slow and purposeful as Yasha's ragged breathing slows and evens out. When the second shackle has fallen away under her fingers, she looks up to find Yasha watching her with a raw quality to those pain-glazed eyes that takes Beau's breath away. She's looked like this before, taken apart and bloody and on her knees, but not to this degree. This time it's like the windows to Yasha's soul have been thrown open, and she's looking at Beau like she's the sun pouring in to wash everything in her with clean, bright light.

Beau will never tire of being the shelter for the storm that is Yasha, of the feeling that she's falling through the very maelstrom that is hers to safeguard. Her place in the world never feels clearer than when Yasha is this shaking and bloodied thing begging Beau to look at the mess she's made of her and be proud to keep it safe.

Beau leans forward and presses her forehead to Yasha's, revels in their shared air as she slides a hand behind Yasha's neck to rest her palm directly against the spot that once bore Obann's mark. She applies a little pressure and glories in the way those unfocused eyes flutter closed with the smallest whimper.

Every part of Yasha is Beau's to keep, each of Beau's touches a promise and a fulfillment in one. Beau ducks just slightly to press her lips against Yasha's, sucking just gently on the top one and running her tongue along its inside until Yasha stirs to life and meets her.

A moment here to linger, and Beau's hands glide along Yasha's arms before pushing against the insides to guide them to her own shoulders. She pulls back and drops one more kiss against Yasha's dazed expression before sitting up on her knees and urging Yasha to follow.

"Open for me," she murmurs. Her fingers find Yasha's waistband without haste; the borrowed pants are soft and loose and come undone with ease. Yasha's knees shift obediently wider and she inhales jaggedly when Beau pushes up closer and wraps an arm around her back. Her skin is fever-warm and slick with blood in places, and Beau traces the raised welts with her fingertips as Yasha's muscles jump and quiver in time with her rapid panting against Beau's shoulder.

When Beau's other hand ghosts up the side of Yasha's thigh to slip in between her legs, Yasha _keens_ against Beau's skin, trembling arms flexing hard with the effort it takes her not to crush Beau against her. Beau kisses the base of the muscle standing out in Yasha's neck and slides her fingers through the slick heat dripping into her palm. She can feel the soaked fabric of Yasha's pants against her knuckles and groans softly as she sinks two fingers into Yasha's core and presses her other hand against her spine, hard.

" _Beau_!" Yasha's cry is a high, broken thing as she surges forward, hips jerking and back arching harder into her touch.

Beau shifts an anticipatory knee to catch their weight and shushes Yasha gently, thrusting up into her as she levers them back in her direction. "I've got you." She sets her teeth gently at the base of Yasha's throat and licks at her pulse. "Let go for me," she murmurs. Something like a sob falls from Yasha's lips as Beau's thumb starts a circular rhythm against her clit.

The final release always comes quickly, and Beau's hands as they deal pain with one and pleasure with the other move with a measured confidence to bring Yasha closer until her thumbs dig hard against Beau's collarbones and she throws her head back, harsh breaths shattering against the air.

"Yasha," Beau pleads softly. She adds a finger and leans forward to take a pink nipple between her teeth, and she pulls -

Yasha screams, a beautiful and broken wail that fades long before her walls stop fluttering around Beau's fingers, before her breath coming harsh in Beau's ear slows to something closer to normal and her weight crumples slowly sideways.

It takes all of Beau's control to ease her down and withdraw her fingers from Yasha's oversensitive cunt without making her jump, and then she collapses on an elbow half on top of her to catch her breath. Yasha's eyes are closed and fluttering, chest heaving as Beau drops a gentle kiss to her swollen nipple, then her collarbone, then her lips.

Silence but for their breathing for two minutes, three, and then those beautiful mismatched eyes blink twice before they find Beau's face. Yasha's shaky hand drifts up to cup her cheek as a slow smile unfurls. "Hey." Her voice is low and wrecked in the way Beau long ago catalogued as a top favorite sound.

Beau presses a kiss into her palm. "You okay?" She looks down at the blood striping her arm in emphasis, and Yasha makes a pleased sort of grunt.

"Already healing." She shifts a little. "Floor's cold. Feels good."

Beau grins and kisses her. "No sentences left, huh? Must've been a good one."

Yasha exhales, eyes drifting shut again. "You take good care of me."

Beau's chest feels full, and she knows her smile has gone all soft even if Yasha doesn't see. She sits up and straddles Yasha's chest, the scent of blood and arousal mingling around them to make her the tiniest bit lightheaded. When Yasha's eyes open again, Beau is examining her bloodstained hand and winks as she licks a fingertip.

Yasha swallows hard. "Gods, Beau." Her hand slides up the top of Beau's thigh to touch her cunt through her undershorts.

Beau grasps her hand gently and bites her lip as she moves it away with an effort of will. "Later," she promises at Yasha's quiet huff. "We're not done with you and you know it."

Yasha starts to sit up, ginger movements still powerful enough to shift Beau off and onto the floor between those still-trembling thighs. "Fine," she says, hissing softly as she peels her back off the floor. "But only because I can't really press the issue."

Beau holds up a hand to pause her there half up on her elbows and takes the moment to gently work the soft pants down Yasha's body and off entirely before pausing just over Yasha's cunt on her way back up. "Press whatever you want, later," she says, and then she licks quick, soft stripe over Yasha's clit that makes her twitch.

"Beau," Yasha warns, but the effect is a little ruined by the way her voice tremors on even that one syllable.

"Yeah, yeah." Beau braces and reaches for Yasha's arm to pull her forward and up onto her shoulder to get them both on their feet. She spends a long moment staring at the discarded manacles, the dark spot on the stone where Yasha's bloody back had lain, and the whip lying almost innocuously to the side with its darkened, shiny tip. With much of Yasha's weight relying on her, that jaw is right there for Beau to press a kiss to. "You're amazing," she says softly.

Yasha smiles a little crookedly. "I think you have about ten minutes before you're going to have to carry me."

"Quick wash," says Beau. "Hang in there for fifteen, and we'll be golden."

It's thanks to the wonder of the tower and its magically apparating doors that Beau is able to haul Yasha from the bath and into her room before consciousness slips from her entirely and she collapses onto the bed, asleep before she lands. Beau rolls the kink out of her neck and watches Yasha for a quiet moment as the slow lightning she's come to recognize as fierce affection and love rolls through her. Yasha's back has already begun to seal itself, and the towel when Beau works it out from under her has only the smallest of red smudges in two places. Beau tosses it in the vague direction of a cat hole and spends a few minutes getting Yasha's sleeping form situated comfortably before diving under the blankets beside her and staring up at the mirror to let her own mind unwind.

She thinks of the cry she pulled from Yasha with the whip, catalogues the reaction and slips a hand under the sheets to circle her own clit. Next time she hits Yasha like that, opens her up that deeply, it will be on purpose. It will likely be weeks before Yasha asks to be broken down again, maybe months before the whip cycles back through. That's alright. She'll be here, whatever the need. Thinking of Yasha coming apart under her in so many ways while working her fingers in hard circles on her swollen clit brings Beau to the edge within minutes, but it's the memory of Yasha's lips pressed to Beau's and the trust in her face as she dangled from her restraints that tips her over.

Beau curls up against Yasha's side and drifts towards sleep with that trust lighting her up from the inside, an arm thrown protectively over that warm, pale stomach. Yasha doesn't need the gesture, but she hadn't needed any of what she brought to Beau today, either. That's the point of it all - she wants it. She wants _Beau_.

It's been months since the letter, since everything changed, and Beau still isn't certain she fully understands the depth of Yasha's trust in her. But it's alright. They’ve got time, and for now the sound of Yasha's deep and even breathing in her ear is everything she needs and more.

**Author's Note:**

> Please go listen to Novo Amor's cover of "Welcome to the Jungle." I've never heard "I wanna watch you bleed" sung with such softness and it broke me a little. I didn't write this fic around the song, I just happened to stumble across it today. Seriously, you're missing out if you come read my stuff for the hornysoft.


End file.
